Please contact Michael Bennet at mbennet@bennetlaw.com or Tony Veach at tveach@bennetlaw.com for more information.
The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) has issued two limited waivers of the FCC’s rural call completion recordkeeping, retention, and reporting rules. First, the Bureau has granted Midcontinent Communications a three-month temporary waiver of the rural call completion rules.[1] Second, the Bureau has granted a three-month temporary waiver of the rules to Carolina West Wireless, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Clear Stream Communications, LLC.[2]
Bottom Line: Midcontinent was granted a three-month waiver of the call completion rules in order to address inaccuracy issues that might arise while it undergoes network upgrades. The Bureau has extended Carolina West a three-month waiver while it continues to consider whether a permanent waiver is warranted. Long distance providers subject to the rural call completion rules were to begin recording call data on April 1. The first quarterly reports covering the April, May, and June timeframe will be due to the FCC August 1.
RURAL CALL COMPLETION RULES
Providers of long-distance voice service that make the initial long-distance call path choice for more than 100,000 domestic retail subscriber lines, counting the total of all business and residential fixed subscriber lines and mobile phones and aggregated over all of the providers’ affiliates, are subject to the FCC’s rural call completion rules.[3] Specifically, these “covered providers” – local exchange carriers (LECs), interexchange carriers (IXCs), commercial mobile radio service (CMRS) providers, and VoIP service providers – must record and retain nine specific details for call attempts to an incumbent local exchange carrier (LEC) that is a rural telephone company, as identified by its operating company number (OCN).[4] Covered providers must then electronically report this data, and other aggregated call completion data, on a quarterly basis to the FCC, beginning August 1, 2015.[5]
MIDCONTINENT CALL COMPLETION WAIVER
Midcontinent provides voice service to residential and business customers in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Midcontinent filed a petition for waiver of the FCC’s rural call completion rules in January 2014.[6] In support of its request, Midcontinent argued that the FCC unfairly changed the definition of covered provider from a standard based on the number of customers served to a standard based on total lines served. Midcontinent serves more than 100,000 lines, but has considerably fewer than 100,000 customers. Midcontinent also argued that it would be too much of a financial burden to comply with the rules and that compliance is unnecessary because it serves almost exclusively small communities, which gives it an incentive to ensure calls are completed. Midcontinent proposed that the FCC waive the rural call completion reporting requirements for Midcontinent until Midcontinent serves 250,000 retail access lines or for three years, whichever period is shorter.
The Bureau has denied Midcontinent’s petition for waiver in the form it was requested, after concluding that Midcontinent has failed to show special circumstances that present good cause for a waiver. However, on its own motion, the Bureau has granted Midcontinent a three month temporary waiver of the FCC’s rural call completion rules.
In its waiver petition, Midcontinent explained to the Bureau that it is currently upgrading its switches. During this upgrade process, Midcontinent will be operating both an old and new switch, and will not be able to accurate record and report call completion data. In the Bureau’s view, Midcontinent has not provided sufficient information showing that the switch upgrades “will persist or pose serious problems permanently.” But, given the Commission’s strong interest in obtaining accurate rural call completion data, the Bureau finds that Midcontinent’s potential complications warrant grant of a temporary three-month waiver of the rules.
As of April 1, 2015, long-distance voice service providers that qualify as “covered providers” must begin recording and retaining the data required under the rural call completion rules. Covered providers must submit their first call data report – for the quarter consisting of April, May, and June 2015 – using FCC Form 480 by August 1, 2015.[7] Accordingly, Midcontinent will not begin recording call completion data until July 1, 2015. The Bureau finds that this three month waiver “will enable Midcontinent either to address any inaccuracy issues that might initially arise from its network upgrades or to file a new request supported by sufficient data to demonstrate a basis for a waiver on an ongoing basis based on the network upgrade.”
CAROLINA WEST CALL COMPLETION WAIVER
In a separate order, and on its own motion, the Bureau has granted a three-month temporary waiver to Carolina West Wireless, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Clear Stream Communications, LLC of the FCC’s rural call completion rules, after finding there is good cause to do so.
Carolina West is a mobile wireless carrier that provides service predominantly in rural areas of North Carolina and is owned by a partnership of three telephone cooperatives. It filed a petition for reconsideration in January 2014 asking the FCC to modify the definition of “covered provider” so that a covered provider’s subscriber lines that are served by non-controlling minority owners are not counted toward the 100,000 line threshold.[8] The Commission denied the petition in its Rural Call Completion Reconsideration Order.[9]
When it denied Carolina West’s petition, the Commission acknowledged that there are burdens associated with compliance with the rural call completion rules, and there may be particular circumstances that make application of the rules to Carolina West inequitable or contrary to the public interest. It then invited Carolina West and others to file waiver requests if they believe that the public interest would be better served by not counting the lines of some or all of their affiliates towards the 100,000 line threshold. Carolina West took up this offer by filing a petition in November 2014 seeking a permanent waiver of the 100,000 subscriber line rule.
The Bureau’s order does not grant or deny Carolina West’s waiver petition. The three-month waiver has been extended on the Bureau’s own motion. According to the Bureau, the merits of Carolina West’s waiver petition remain under consideration.
If you would like information on the FCC’s rural call completion rules, please contact us.
[1] Rural Call Completion: Request for Waiver of Midcontinent Communications, WC Docket No. 13-39, Order, DA 15-405 (Mar. 31, 2015).
[2] Rural Call Completion: Petition for Waiver of Carolina West Wireless, Inc., WC Docket No. 13-39, Order, DA 15-404 (Mar. 31, 2015).
[3] See Rural Call Completion, WC Docket 13-39, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 13-135 (rel. Nov. 8, 2013); 47 C.F.R. § 64.2101 – 64.2109.
[4] In the Rural Call Completion Recon Order, the FCC excluded intraLATA interexchange/toll calls that do not traverse any underlying carriers’ networks from the call completion recordkeeping and reporting requirements. Rural Call Completion, WC Docket 13-39, Order on Reconsideration, FCC 14-175, ¶9 (Nov. 13, 2014). In the AT&T waiver order, the Bureau clarified that all providers that are subject to the FCC’s rural call completion rules do not have to record, retain, and report call information where the terminating LEC switch only supports multi-frequency signaling (MF signaling) technology. Rural Call Completion: Petition for Limited Waiver of AT&T Services, Inc., Petition for Waiver of CenturyLink, WC Docket 13-39, Order, DA 15-147 (Feb. 2, 2015).
[5] See 47 C.F.R. § 64.2105(b).
[6] Midcontinent Communications Request for Waiver, WC Docket No. 13-39 (filed Jan. 23, 2014).
[7] See 47 C.F.R. § 64.2105(a).
[8] Petition for Reconsideration of Carolina West Wireless, WC Docket 13-39 (Jan. 16, 2014).
[9] Rural Call Completion, WC Docket 13-39, Order on Reconsideration, FCC 14-175 (Nov. 13, 2014) (Rural Call Completion Reconsideration Order).
